A Poor Means Test? : Econometric Targeting in Africa

Brown, Caitlin ; Ravallion, Martin ; van de Walle, Dominique

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: TARGETING OF SOCIAL TRANSFERS;    PROXY MEANS TEST;    SOCIAL PROTECTION;    SOCIAL PROGRAMS;    poverty;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7915
RP-ID  :  WPS7915

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Proxy-means testing is a popular methodof poverty targeting with imperfect information. In a nowwidely-used version, a regression for log consumptioncalibrates a proxy-means test score based on chosencovariates, which is then implemented for targetingout-of-sample. In this paper, the performance of variousproxy-means testing methods is assessed using data for nineAfrican countries. Standard proxy-means testing helps filterout the nonpoor, but excludes many poor people, thusdiminishing the impact on poverty. Some methodologicalchanges perform better, with a poverty-quantile methoddominating in most cases. Even so, either a basic-incomescheme or transfers using a simple demographic scorecard arefound to do as well, or almost as well, in reducing poverty.However, even with a budget sufficient to eliminate povertywith full information, none of these targeting methodsbrings the poverty rate below about three-quarters of itsinitial value. The prevailing methods are particularlydeficient in reaching the poorest.